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Construction – In Her Blood [UPDATED]
Published 10:15am Wednesday, May 4, 2011 Updated 10:32am Friday, May 6, 2011By: Reba Gilliand – Photos by Janelle Streed
Tiffany Bladow is an unlikely construction worker. Even her name sounds as if she should be bedecked with jewels rather than wielding a hammer. Her mother was fond of the name when she was a girl and determined to name a daughter Tiffany. She didn’t know she’d raise a hammer-toting, nail- pounding, level-finding daughter.
Tiffany lives in the country on land that’s wooded and hilly. The bluish-gray house is an older home that sits far back on a lot high above the county road over which it looks. The property includes a house and two other buildings – a four-car and a double-car garage. She liked having the additional space the out-buildings offered and the opportunity to exercise her creative talent on the solidly-built, but smaller home.
Inside the house, she surrounds herself with things she loves: A china hutch and other antiques ably restored, a corner cabinet her dad built that holds a jewel-red pitcher and tumblers of anodized aluminum, and another cabinet that holds brightly colored sherbet cups of similar vintage. On the island are place mats she created from yo-yo circles her mother taught her to make; on the walls hang finely crafted cross-stitch. She shows me exquisite Hardanger embroidery she’s made. “I’m not much for sitting and watching T.V.,” she smiles, as I admire her handiwork.
I can see that’s so. She’s remodeled the entry, eating and living area to create an open floor plan and installed warm honey-colored Pergo flooring. Wainscoting topped by paint of soft gold gives the space an intimate feel. As we talk, she points to a picture window that’s been roughed in. “I love the extra light the new window gives,” she says. “Now I have the trim to put up.”
Tiffany is next to the youngest, one of four, with two older brothers and a younger sister. She moved to the area when her father relocated the family business here. Their roots were in Wahpeton, where her grandfather, and then, father owned Bladow & Sons Construction. The drive between the family’s Deer Lake cottage and Wahpeton became long, though, and her father decided to move the construction business to the lakes area.
So as a sophomore, Tiffany found herself at Underwood High School. The move was difficult – she was leaving behind friends of a lifetime and having to making new friends in a place where kids had been together since kindergarten. She also had to give up tennis, which she loved, because the smaller school didn’t offer it. But gradually she made new friends and began to feel at home. She’s retained those friendships and, in fact, is even now in the midst of making placemats for a best friend from Underwood who’s getting married soon.
After graduating from high school, Tiffany went to college in Wahpeton to become an occupational therapist. She soon discovered she didn’t care for occupational therapy and reconsidered her future. Her mother helped her figure out what she might enjoy – before long Tiffany was attending school in Fargo to become a massage therapist.
It was in Fargo where the call came that would change the direction of her life once more. Her father phoned to say that he and her brothers (Bladow & Sons Construction) were overbooked – could she come and help? She did. That was 2001. Now Tiffany works full-time construction alongside her father and two brothers.
The days are long – they work sun up to sun down and longer when necessary. Construction shuts down for 4th of July, but that’s about it. Although Tiffany loves summer – at least for play – she prefers spring and fall for working, when the temperature is moderate.
She may have come to construction work later than her brothers, but construction is in her blood. As a youngster she’d go with her father on weekends to construction sites. “I loved it,” Tiffany recalls fondly. “I’d get to pound nails and stack planks.”
Like the men in the family, Tiffany learned construction by doing. She works alongside her father and brothers as they build houses from the ground up – footings, floor joists, plywood covering the floor joists, outside walls, wall sheeting, rafters, (floor trusses, if two story), roof sheeting, inside walls, backing for sheetrock…. I lose track as she continues to list the steps involved in building a house. I ask what she does in the construction process. “I do it all,” she smiles. “Right now, I’m doing trim work. I think I’m going to like that best of all.”
The Bladows are busy with construction all year round. During the winter, they had three jobs going and a couple of remodels, which they’ll finish up late spring. Then summer jobs begin. But that’s not to say all they do is work. Tiffany says they have a large, close family and wonderful family get togethers. Christmas and Thanksgiving are especially fun when all the aunts, uncles, cousins and grandparents gather at the Bladow’s Deer Lake home.
The females in the family – mother, daughters, sisters, sister-in-laws, aunts – get together once a year at an aunt’s house in Harlow ND by Devils Lake. “We call it our Cancun Week-end,” Tiffany laughs. One year her sister’s friends were all headed to Cancun for spring break, while she and Tiffany were headed to their aunt’s house for a Bladow “girls” weekend. Her sister called it her Cancun weekend and the name stuck.
Last winter, the family females decided they’d have an “Aspen” weekend too. Tiffany says the “girls” all practiced cross-country skiing in preparation for the big “Aspen” get together at her aunt’s. Was it as much fun as their Cancun event? “Definitely,” Tiffany says. “Anytime we’re together, we have a blast.”
It’s late Wednesday afternoon when Tiffany and I meet. The light coming through the new picture window is darkening to dusk. We’ve talked about life and building homes and the relative advantages of old versus new homes. As we wrap up, the phone rings, “There’s some estimating work that needs attention, can you come?” I head home as this soft-spoken, likable, multi-talented young woman heads off to do yet one more of the endless tasks required of a woman (or man) in construction.
